


these disinherited children

by akaiiko



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon-Typical Violence, Heavy Angst, Inspired by The Hunger Games, M/M, Mentioned/Background Unpleasant Shit, Mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, One-Sided Keith/Lotor (Voltron), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-10 02:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15281313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko
Summary: On the shattered remains of Daibazaal, Tributes from all over the Galran Empire fight to the death in the Homeworld Games for the promise of glory, honor, and survival. Keith doesn’t need glory, he already has honor, and he doesn’t intend to survive. This year, the Games will end with a Prince dead and an Empire burning.The universe—or at least the universe who bothers to watch the Reaping—will see him just as he is on those screens. Short, wiry, male. Human, until they catch on the omega brand at his inner wrist that means he's got enough Galra in him to matter. Made up of sharp angles and bony edges, but softened by large eyes. Desert child with heavy boots and engine grease under his nails.Fifteen steps up to the stage. Ten, he can feel the crowd moving in close behind him. Five, his skin pricks beneath the heavy purple lights the Galra are so fond of. One, he reminds himself that he chose this.Looking up at the Reaper, he says, “I volunteer as Tribute for the Homeworld Games.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay lowkey writing this fic has been a cursed experience up to and including losing the entire fic because of an act of god & google docs. but like. we here. we survived. and into this fic i have poured my spite, my malice, and my will to face god and walk backwards into hell.
> 
> but no really we're gonna have a great time y'all.

Here is how Keith dies: “I volunteer!”

Two words, and he’s the eye of a storm. The crowd thrashes with movement but remains oddly silent. Keith knows they want to know who volunteered, and he thinks they don’t want to make a sound in case it somehow reverses his decision. When he takes a step—toward the stage and his fate—people fall back.

On the stage, the Galra in charge of Reaping blinks enormous yellow eyes. Reaper Prorok is a squat creature that barely comes up to Keith’s collarbone. Galra don’t show emotion, not usually, but this particular one looks _baffled_.

“You volunteer?” he asks. The sound system cracks his voice. All through his speech, he kept smacking at the projection drone as if it would make his voice clearer. Now, he doesn’t even swat at it. Just edges closer to the edge of the stage and eyes Keith. “You?”

“Me,” Keith says. Not without irony. Closer to the stage now, the caster drones have turned on him and he’s thrown up in stark relief against the holoscreens.

The universe—or at least the universe who bothers to watch the Reaping—will see him just as he is on those screens. Short, wiry, male. Human, until they catch on the omega brand at his inner wrist that means he's got enough Galra in him to matter. Made up of sharp angles and bony edges, but softened by large eyes. Desert child with heavy boots and engine grease under his nails.

Fifteen steps up to the stage. Ten, he can feel the crowd moving in close behind him. Five, his skin pricks beneath the heavy purple lights the Galra are so fond of. One, he reminds himself that he chose this.

Looking up at the Reaper, he says, “I volunteer as Tribute for the Homeworld Games.”

* * *

Reapings draw from a planet’s entire native population.

Core planets—who’ve learned to thrive beneath the Empire’s heel—have a steady supply of volunteers. The Reaping is a mere formality. Sentries don’t bother to grab the Reaped, just wait for the volunteer. On those planets, everyone knows, it’s a prestige position. Something fought over. A chance at glory and riches.

Most planets have only the Reaping. Only the unlucky.  Law of averages means that sometimes the Tributes are old, or sick, or children.

* * *

Keith takes the stairs onto the stage two at a time. Walks past Prorok, who addresses the crowd gleefully. ( _There are bonuses for Reapers who get volunteers,_ Regris told him. _Volunteers make for better sport. Use that to learn more from the Reaper during the journey to Central Command._ ) Goes to the only other person on the stage, a girl he’s meant to replace, and drops into a crouch in front of her.

“Hey,” he says. Gentle as he can manage.

Blank eyes don’t quite meet his. She’s staring over his shoulder, off at the crowd, but really at nothing. Numb terror is the only thing registered on her face. The sentries would’ve come for her the day before, probably, and ripped her out of her parents arms. Keith guesses her age to be around four years, maybe a bit older if she’s been malnourished. Youngest Reaped there’s been in a while. Part of him wonders if she even understands what the Reaping means.

“Hey,” he tries again. This time he curls his fingers, nudges under her chin with a knuckle so she has to look at him properly. “It’ll be okay,” he says. “Your parents will be here soon.”

“Mama?” she asks. No bruises ring her throat, but she sounds hoarse and so she must’ve screamed for hours when they took her. Hope mixes with her fear. Something’s sparking in her eyes now, as they fix on his, and she’s verging on a wail as she asks, “Mama?”

Clenching his jaw against a brief flare of old pain, Keith manages a nod. “Yeah,” he says. “Mama’s coming for you.”

Because that’s how this works. Sentries will deposit her back with her parents. Traumatized but alive. She reaches up and grabs at his hand. Like most children, her hand is warm and sticky, but the strength that she holds onto his fingers with is all her own. That’s enough to get him to smile. Because she’s going to live and he wants her to be brave. “It’ll be okay,” he promises.

* * *

They spare him an entire two dobashes and thirteen tics in the highlight reel for the Reapings. It’s a dobash more than they expected. ( _You’ll get some coverage_ , Kolivan said, _being a human volunteer, but not much. Work with what you get._ ) But they couldn’t have expected that the original tribute would be a child.

Most of his reel focuses on the way he walked through the rapidly parting crowd, chin up and eyes defiant, and how it’s proof of how Galra blood always tells. One commentator insists that he volunteered out of omegan instincts. They add in a clip of him talking to the little girl—she doesn’t get a name, ceased to be important the tic Keith volunteered—and they spend the rest of the reel focusing on that. Then they’re off to the next set of tributes from Keith’s quadrant.

It’s a good spin. People will pay attention to him for all the wrong reasons.

* * *

Reaper Prorok assures the nineteen Tributes that their ship has been outfitted with the very best tech. It will take them only three vargas to cross the hundreds of systems necessary to reach Central Command. Behold the might of the Galra Empire, he tells them. As if their lives aren’t proof enough.

The transport ship has enough room for all of them to have separate quarters. Keith likes his well enough. Like most Galra designed spaces, it’s sparse and utilitarian, but everything is higher quality than he’s used to. The best part is the blanket on his regulation cot. It’s a thick, tight weave of a material softer than kitten fur that keeps off the ever present chill of space. Keith plans to steal it off the ship, if he can.

During that first meal time, he tries to mention the blanket to the slender female at his right. All he gets in response is dull eyes. Not terror, but acceptance. There’s a reason Tributes are always on suicide watch.

At the second meal time, he tries to talk to Reaper Prorok. “What is Central Command like?” he asks. “How long will we spend there?” Prorok responds only with chatter about the power of the Empire and the promotion he will get if Keith performs well. Regris was right, apparently.

No one looks directly at them, including the few other Galran soldiers in the mess hall, but Keith can tell that everyone’s watching. He figures their interest will dim as the meal carries on. Instead, it gets worse. Too late he figures out why they’re watching him like a wounded antelope. “I could tell you more in my quarters, of course!” Prorok says. Bright eyes slide over Keith in obvious greed.

Keith is not _attractive_ by Galran standards. Too short and too pale. Blunt teeth and prey eyes. If he were not an omega, no Galra would look his way, but he is an omega.

“No,” he says. Tributes are not given knives with their dinners, but he could do damage with the two pronged fork he holds in his left hand. More damage that Prorok expects. When Prorok sputters and reaches for him anyway, Keith bares his teeth in warning. Prorok laughs, retracts his hand, suddenly wary. Maybe everyone’s right and Galran blood does tell.

Vargas pass and Keith settles for watching more Reaping highlight reels in his room. He’s creating an index in his head. Enemies. Allies. Walking dead. Most Tributes die within the first month of the Games.

Maybe he spends too much time watching the Reaping at Central Command. It’s someone who hasn’t even been brought to the Reaping grounds. Just a name. Some low level bureaucrat, probably, who was busy creating supply logs. Whoever they were, they don’t matter. Lotor, Prince of the Empire, steps into the frame. “I volunteer,” he says, “to represent the Empire in the Homeworld Games.”

In the reels, he always looks calm. Aristocratically bored, even. Like the whole thing is beneath him. But the set of his mouth is cruel. Hidden calculation that suggests he’s playing a part for the benefit of everyone watching. The Blades have footage of him on the battlefield and too often he wears this exact expression.

Central Command is always first Reaped. Keith still remembers Kolivan’s words, right before Keith took on the mission: _we don’t know why Lotor volunteered_.

* * *

Keith’s one of the best recruits the Blades have ever turned out, but he’s more human than not. Central Command has no room for those who don’t fit the Galran standard. Only Galra passing Blade agents are trained for this place. They know its layout, its key players, its weaknesses. All he has is the schematics he studied on his way back to Earth. It’s inadequate.

The Sentries herd him down corridors that he tries to match with the map he constructed in his head. It’s a thought exercise. A way to keep himself calm. Keith will never have the freedom to wander Galran high command unsupervised.

Protocol dictates that Tributes be kept for only nine vargas after the last of them arrive. Just enough time to process them for the Games. Data chips, health scans, scoring of their likely odds of success to fuel the vast betting pools of the Empire. All of this he knew, more because it’s _known_ than because he’d thought about it, but now it’s his life and he can’t stop thinking about it.

Maybe it’s finally settling in his gut what this means. The Blades had needed to act quickly when Lotor volunteered. Keith had been angry, fierce, unwilling to back down when Kolivan tried to order him down.

“I don’t regret it,” he whispers. The door hisses shut behind him. Despite being in an entirely different Galran ship, the quarters he’s been assigned look nearly identical to those on Prorok’s ship. Nothing in here belongs to him and the room’s hard surfaces will quickly lose his scent when he leaves in just over a week. Without kicking off his boots or even stripping off his jacket, he climbs onto the bed and curls tight.

* * *

“Right upper limb,” the med tech says. She reaches her own right upper limb—an arm, as it happens—in a vague gesture to her cyber-unit. It spits out another hyponeedle with a data chip embedded in it.

Keith might be offended that she hasn’t even bothered to identify the number of limbs he has or what they might be called, except he’s watched her deal with the line of people in front of him for going on three dobashes. The Empire has conquered many species. A surprising number conform to four limbs, but not all. So he just holds his arm up and waits.

Unlike the med techs in charge of health scans, her grip on his arm as she steadies him for the injection is not cruel. It is cool, professional, with the insides of her palm almost like the scales of a green anole. The way she treats him is not kindness, but it’s more than most grant Tributes.

Especially Tributes who aren’t expected to survive. Keith got his scores five dobashes back. A five out of ten. Not terrible. With that kind of score he’s expected to last a few vargas, at least, but not top hundred. _Disappointing for an omega_ , the assessor had muttered. _Must be the human blood_. Keith had bit his lip so he wouldn’t snarl. This was how he was supposed to act. Supposed to be.

The needle presses into his skin and he doesn’t flinch. Coolness spreads from the site of the injection. It numbs the pain. Briefly, his skin feels too full. Once, back on Earth, a rattlesnake bit him and it had hurt more but similar. Keith feels a faint queasiness in his stomach at the memory. He keeps his eyes focused ahead.

“Hm,” the med tech hums. The needle withdraws. “Reaction. Anti-allergen medication.” None of this is addressed to him.

While the cyber-unit makes up whatever she plans to inject in him to stop the tingling spreading down his arm, Keith looks over the other line. The other med tech is clearly full Galra and pissed to be assigned this kind of menial duty. If Keith was in his line, it’d probably be up to Keith himself to figure out how to deal with the allergic reaction. They don’t have to be healthy when they get to Daibazaal. Just alive.

“Right upper limb,” the Galra barks.

Keith’s gaze trails to the next unlucky Tribute. It takes seconds longer than it should to catalogue him. A head shorter than the average Galra but just as broad and well-muscled. Dark hair punctuated with a shock of white near the forehead. Loose posture, deceptively relaxed like a predator in between hunts. Holding up his right arm, which glints under the harsh lights, clearly a prosthetic. Top quality, Galra military, far better than any normal human could afford. Because this Tribute _is_ human.

The Champion.

They Reaped the fucking _Champion_. The first non-Galra to win the Games ever. And they brought him back to play again.

All he wants, suddenly, is to get away from this medbay so he can try to strategize how the fuck he’s supposed to cope with not just the Prince of the Empire but the Champion. Surviving both of them would be one thing. Killing both of them? Keith knows he’s smart, knows he’s strong, but he also knows that he was never meant to do this. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been Ulaz or Thace or even Regris.

“—can’t chip your tech,” the Galra snarls.

Keith swallows, refocusing in the present. The tingling has reached his fingers and he glances at his own med tech. Finds she’s focused on the scene unfolding across the way. Same as pretty much everyone else in the room, at this point. Hard to tell how many of them have identified the man, but then again how could they not when his face had been plastered against every surface of the Empire for years.

The Champion shrugs. “You asked for the right arm,” he says. “Not my fault I lost it in the last Games.” If anyone in the room didn’t recognize him, they do now, and a strange sort of hush falls over the lines. It’s a little too close for comfort to the hush that fell with Keith volunteered.

“Left arm, then.” Hard to tell if the Galra’s embarrassed, awed, or just wants to get the whole interaction over with. It could be any of those things, or all of them.

“What, this isn’t tracking device enough?” the Champion asks. He wiggles the fingers of his prosthetic as he speaks. Definitely military grade. There’s a vibrancy to the purple light pulsing along it’s nerve apertures that only comes with their frontline weapons development. Likely it comes with more than just the tracking device and health monitor they’re all given with these injections.

Before the Galra can get any more wound up, the Champion turns and offers his left arm for injection. Dark eyes sweep over the lines and land unerringly on Keith.

Keith wants to justify it with logic. They’re across from one another. Partially separated from the next in line. Of course he’s easy to spot. But another part of him wonders. The Champion’s staring at him with an expression that he doesn’t know how to articulate. Curiosity, maybe a little amusement, and something else that strikes too close to soft for Keith to be entirely comfortable with it.

A pinch jolts him from their staring contest. “Next,” the med tech calls. Dismissing him without speaking to him. Just like the rest of their interaction. At least the tingling in his arm has started to dissipate.

Keith hurries toward the exit, reaching up to rub at the site of his two injections. Whatever just happened can’t happen again. “I don’t regret this,” he repeats to himself. The doors open to reveal the next set of Sentries to escort him. He steps into their formation, then looks back before he can stop himself. The Champion is still watching him with that unreadable expression. The doors close before either of them look away. “I chose this.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow hi thank you everyone??? i'm gonna respond to comments tomorrow because i was really bad about responding today but i'm so blown away that people are reading???? and?????? enjoying???????
> 
> so here's some sweet sheith content for you before the angst starts in earnest.

Daibazaal is a massive planet, for all that its final demise cored it into a barely inhabitable husk. Holding the Games on the forsaken territory is about the symbolism. Most focus on how it reminds the Tributes, and their home planets, of the power of the Galra. The way they survive against harsh odds with viscera on their teeth and victory in their eyes.

But Keith remembers listening to Antok tell the old stories. The Galra weren’t the only inhabitants of Daibazaal in the beginning. They were just the ones who managed to survive. _Because of cubs like you,_ Antok had said fondly, nudging Keith’s jaw with one massive finger. _You are the bloody heart of our people_. The Games are about reminding the Galra about how much they’ve survived in an uncertain universe.

Funny how bedtime stories are the key that let him unlock the inner mechanics of the Games. If he planned on surviving, he’d have to thank Antok for indulging him back then.

The day of the health inspections and injections was the first of their nine vargas at Central Command. He spends the next two vargas noticing how he sees the same Tributes over and over again. Nineteen Galra, all from smaller colony planets at the outer fringes of the core planets and all alphas. Five humans. Ninety assorted other species, mostly prey based lifeforms rather than predator based. One Champion. And one part-Galra omega.

An entertaining mix, he realizes when he watches five of the alphas gang up on a small Hesnyn who looks a bit like a bipedal sheep. They’re in the training hall. Supposedly they’re meant to be learning survival techniques or weapons. Few bother to do as much. The Hesnyn bleats and finally manages to duck under the paws of the Galra.

Enough cannon fodder for the favorites to chew through, Keith notes as the Hesnyn ducks in with a Ottiii and a Tc’wuru. An alliance of Galra who can claim victory before turning on one another in glorious battle. An omega for the alphas to scrap over or rape or both.

Metal clangs against metal. Keith doesn’t flinch, but his spine goes stiff. The sound is unnatural, too high and clear, nothing like good solid luxite meeting durasteel. Carefully, he looks over his shoulder as the sound happens again. Again. _Again_. Three more of the alphas decided to gang up on bigger prey, harrying the Champion with claws and blades, working together like a pack of wolves so that none of them ever get too close.

To the untrained eye, it looks as though they’re wearing him down. All the Champion’s focus appears to be on blocking their blades with his arm—the high, ringing sound that sets Keith’s teeth on edge—and dodging from the blows he can’t block. They’re getting bolder with each inch of ground he gives up.

Keith feels his lips tip up in a reluctant grin. Counts down the tics as the alphas get overconfident and forget to dart away once they ‘land’ a blow.

The Champion’s hand lights up and in a blur of motion almost too fast for the eye to follow, the three alphas are down, flesh sizzling in deep gouges. Supervision drones trickle their way, to assess the level of damage, as the Champion steps over their crumpled bodies. Despite the dobashes long fight, he doesn’t look winded and he hasn’t got so much as a bruise on him.

Can’t say as much for his opponents. Two of them have been deemed non-life-threatening, but at least one has been hauled over the shoulder of a sentry to be carried off for medical attention. It’ll hurt the alpha’s scores during final reassessment. No longer a favorite.

When training began, Keith purposefully tucked himself into a high corner. One of the many leveled climbing walls meant to prepare them for the terrain of Daibazaal. It affords him a good view of the room, but puts him out of the line of sight for anyone who doesn’t know where to look.

This time, Keith does flinch as the Champion’s dark eyes sweep over the massive hall before locking on him.

* * *

Compulsion directed him to watch Prince Lotor’s Reaping until he’d memorized every nuance of those brief moments. The compulsion that drives him now is similar, but it feels qualitatively different on a level he doesn’t quite understand.

The Champion’s Games unfold before him on holovid after holovid. Early in the Games, he was a strong competitor but far from a favorite. The dark horse, to borrow an old Earth phrase, or maybe just an underdog. Nothing like the young god that the Empire will make him out to be within a few star cycles.

Here is what Keith learns: the Champion survived because he’s smart. The Champion won because he’s _brutal_.

* * *

On the fourth varga, all of the Tributes are gathered into a single hall.

Rank determinations. Different from scoring, which is released to the public for those damned betting pools. These are purely for the Empire’s records.

Ulaz, who briefly worked in Druid High Command, thinks it has to do with figuring out which planets are likely candidates. _For what?_ Keith asked. For rebellions. For experimentation. For inter-breeding with the lower Galra ranks. A series of escalating horrors. Then again, Ulaz enjoys pushing everyone’s buttons with worst case scenarios.

Keith needs to lay low. He tells himself that even as he slips through the crowds. If he makes himself known, he’ll ruin everything, kill this mission in its infancy. The Blades won’t get another chance like this for decaphoebs. Assuming they ever get a chance like this again at all.

Lotor stands tall and elegant and proud. Of course he’s near the center of the room. The unspoken center of all attention.

Four women stand at his back. They differ wildly, half Galran like Keith. (Like Lotor.) But there’s a certain commonality to them in the hard set to their eyes and mouths. Even the slight and brightly colored one, seemingly the youngest, has cunning written in the shape of her laughter. Deadly, all of them, and a challenge the Blades had not expected.

After Lotor volunteered, his Generals must have returned to their own home planets to volunteer as well. Or perhaps they’d already been there, waiting for the signal. Keith rubs a thumb again his jaw and considers Kolivan’s words bleakly.

_We don’t know why Lotor volunteered._

Hope centered on the idea that Lotor had volunteered due to pressure from his father. Whispers from high command suggested that the young Prince had pushed too hard, too far, and finally run out whatever patience the Emperor held for his antics. This would be an easy way to dispose of his son without public outcry. If this were true, he would have few resources and fewer allies.

Keith tilts his head and watches how the women move. The slender, hooded one is utterly and eerily still. The brutish one keeps lunging toward those who get too close, her laugh booming as they skitter away in fear, clearly enjoying the game. The brightly colored one bounces on her feet. Playful, but staging her own kind of game.

It’s the last one, standing closest to Lotor’s left side, is the one he’s most instinctively wary of. She lacks the hooded one’s stillness, the brightly colored one’s grace, and the brutish one’s strength. But she carries herself like a soldier. Steady, fearless, already strategically mapping the battlefield in her mind. Even if she looks like she could be snapped by a strong breeze, she’s a commander at heart, and he’s uncomfortably reminded of Thace.

Aside from Lotor, she’ll be his biggest threat. Especially considering how she subtly guides the other women. Reining the brightly colored one and the brutish one from their worst antics with nothing more than a narrowing of her eyes. That’s power.

Stay quiet, he tells himself. Keep away.

Instead he ducks closer, unable to resist the urge to test himself against the mission and see how far his skill will take him. He wishes for his blade. Thinks that if he had it, he could end this all here and now. It won’t matter if he dies months from now or today. Just so long as he finishes the mission.

A handful of Galra approach the Prince. They would want to meet him, of course. Lotor’s a likely candidate to rule the Empire if he survives and he’s been the star of a half dozen propaganda reels over the years.

Now that a handful have proven brave, more surge through the crowds, some just to watch and others to try their luck with speaking. Keith lets himself be caught in the rush. Unfamiliar bodies jostle him closer to the Prince. Only occasionally does he angle himself. Getting past that defensive ring will be the hardest part, and he needs to choose his approach carefully if he doesn’t want to end up over a sentry’s shoulder.

The brutish one—Zethrid, he hears the brightly colored one call her—looks at him but her eyes skim right over him. She only sees how he’s getting pushed around by too eager Galra and thinks he’s weak. Perfect.

Keith carefully angles himself, holds his breath, and—

With a lunge disguised as a fall, he stumbles into the Prince. One hand closes around Lotor’s wrist while the other grasps the knife he’d seen hilted just next to a ceremonial sword. By the time he’s straightened, pulling himself by the grip on Lotor’s wrist, he’s flipped the knife up and slid it into his sleeve. It lays flat against his forearm, a hint of danger that makes his heart beat a wild rhythm.

“Your Highness,” he says. Deferential, because he knows the game he’s playing. The knife is cold against his skin. Well-tended and sharp. If he wanted, he could get it out of his sleeve and between the Prince’s ribs in three tics.

“Who are you?” Lotor asks. He sounds…amused.

Biting his cheek, Keith looks up and tries to keep up the charade of fragile, wilting, too human omega. There’s a reason he’d never been a spy. All of his acting is shit. “No one,” he tries, anyway, because he has to.

This gets him slightly narrowed eyes. The slender General at his side steps closer.

Keith swallows and lets the fear of discovery roll through him. Fear makes him sharp, makes his brain work faster and better and smarter, but it’ll also sell this stupid charade. Quickly now he lets go of the Prince’s wrist and backs away. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I just wanted to see the Prince in person. I didn’t mean. I would _never_ —”

Interest is lost. He lets the crowd take him back out. The arm he hid the blade against has to be held close to his chest and he feels one edge bite into his forearm when he’s hit hard by some overeager alien. Hissing slow through his teeth, he keeps going.

When he gets to the fringes, someone reaches out to grab his free arm and haul him those last critical yards. Keith looks up, newly injured arm still cradled against his chest, to see the Champion. The man’s broad shoulders block out the worst of the crowd. It’s the first time in a while that Keith hasn’t been pressed for space and he feels his chest decompress. “Thank you,” he says, and thinks he might even mean it.

The Champion’s eyes are dark grey-brown, like aged driftwood, and they crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “Was all that worth it?” he asks. Hearing his voice this close, it’s got a quality to it like the rasping purr of a cat. The words soothe over Keith’s skin like benediction.

“Meeting the Prince is—” Keith starts.

But while the Prince and his Generals may have been content to buy his lie, they had not spent three and a half vargas watching him constantly. The Champion grips Keith’s injured elbow and pulls out the knife before Keith can stop him. It’d be easy to take out the Champion’s knees, grab the blade, and plunge it into the human’s throat. In his head, Keith choreographs the entire thing, but he doesn’t carry it out.

The Champion lets out a quiet laugh. The luxite blade gleams in his hands as he tilts it this way and that in consideration. “You’re a brave one,” he says. Flipping the blade, he hands it back to Keith hilt first.

Carefully, Keith wraps his fingers around the blade and tucks it into the loose band of his regulation pants. Already he’s done enough damage. Better now to disappear and hope that the Champion somehow manages to forget all of this. Instead, he feels his lips stretching into a smile as he looks up at the Champion. “I am.”

* * *

The next day, the Champion settles next to Keith in the mess. Brings with him a sea of curious eyes, because no one else had bothered to look Keith’s way since processing started.

Eating together implies something. Alliance. No one’s bothered trying to make an alliance when Keith’s so clearly pegged as an early death. Just how the Blades planned it. Only Keith fucked up yesterday, and now the Champion pushes a plate piled high with protein and carbs in front of him like they’re friends.

“You need to eat more,” he says. “Put on as much weight as you can. Daibazaal has creatures that can be hunted and some plant life, but it won’t be enough calories to make up for what you’ll burn surviving.”

The food on the plate looks human enough, but Keith recognizes that the meat is still closer to raw than cooked and the potatoes have been supplemented. It’s a meal calibrated for exact nutritional needs of a half-Galran. Somehow, there’s even butter in the potatoes, and he’s a little afraid what the Champion had to do for that indulgence.

“Okay?” Keith says. He’s nearly done with his plate anyway—human standard fare. He pushes it off to the side and pulls the Champion’s offered plate closer. Subtly he flares his nostrils, taking in the scent coming off the food for any obvious sign of poisons.

The Champion notices. “It’s safe,” he says. Gently. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” As if that’s the problem here. That someone else might try to hurt Keith, instead of this utterly brutal man who went through nearly seven hundred competitors, including a blooded Galra _general_ , with the single minded focus of a predator. Still, he looks sincere and if he wanted Keith dead it would’ve been easier to let Lotor finish the job.

Slowly, Keith scoops some mashed potatoes into his mouth. They’re heavy and warm and rich. He lets out a soft moan without really meaning to. Food is usually about sustenance, not pleasure, but these are good.

Happiness softens the lines of the Champion’s face. Something releases in his shoulders. Alert, still, but no longer ready to fight. “I’m glad you like it,” he says. Keith expects more—maybe a statement about how difficult it must’ve been to get this high quality of food for a lesser Tribute—but the Champion doesn’t do anything except dig into his own meal.

Keith reevaluates. Not allies.

* * *

They train together.

Or rather, the Champion follows him around the training room pointing out survival exercises he ought to try. It would be annoying if it didn’t give Keith an excuse to practice all the things he’s desperately been wanting to. No one will think anything of him giving into the demands of the Champion. The Game Runners won’t up his final score by more than a point, likely not even that, as his new knowledge will be balanced by his perceived submissiveness.

They eat together.

Every meal now, the Champion brings him a plate full of high quality and nutrient dense food. Keith can feel his body shifting, putting on more muscle and a thin layer of fat he’s never had before, changing him into something that will have extra insurance against the coming scarcity. It would be easy to point to the fact that Keith doesn’t want to talk and that means he has to eat. The Champion talks during meals, about things that don’t seem to matter, like star patterns and the way it feels to stand on a mountain beneath an endless sky.

They’re drifting into each other’s orbits, slowly but steadily, and it’ll be a problem before the end. Keith wants to be on Daibazaal. It will be less complicated there.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a fuckin' dumbass who doesn't know how space time units work. vargas are not days, they are hours. quintents are days. sort of. OTL
> 
>  **WARNING:** for those keeping track of the home game, this chapter is where we start to live up to the "chose not to use archive warnings" and also "mentioned/background unpleasant shit." specifically there's some gore, some people die, and there's threats of rape. uh. yeah.

The Champion throws him down on the mat hard enough for Keith’s breath to hiss out of his lungs. “Better,” the Champion says. “Watch for your head. Daibazaal’s terrain is rocky. If you take a rock to the skull or the spinal cord—”

“I’ll be dead, got it,” Keith says. He pushes himself into a seated position. The exercises the Champion has him running are basic. Literal child’s play from his early days in the Blades. It could be nostalgic. Sometimes, when he’s not paying attention, it’s fun. But mostly it’s confusing, because the Champion has spent the last four quintents doing his damnedest to make sure Keith knows the basics of survival on Daibazaal.

As usual, the Champion holds out his human hand for Keith to grasp. The offer is habit, Keith thinks, knowing that most people only see a weapon in the prosthetic limb. Here is the part where Keith takes the offered hand, gets hauled to his feet, and they start this game all over again.

Keith bats the hand away. “I’m tired,” he says. Blunt, and not entirely truthful. Over the last few quintents he’s done his best to figure out why the Champion keeps following him around. If they’re allies, it’s an unspoken thing, and if they’re something else he can’t figure out quite  _ what _ . Maybe it’s time to figure it out.

Drawing his knees toward his chest, he wraps his arms around the limbs and ignores the grunts of the others training. He looks up at the Champion. Under his eyelashes, because he’s noticed that when he does that the Champion goes still and focused. Keith doesn’t want to think about why it gives him a thrill to test out flirtation on someone this dangerous. “We’re going to Daibazaal tomorrow,” he says.

To his surprise, the Champion drops onto the mat next to him. “Yes,” he says. One of his shoulders brushes against Keith’s then rests there, barely touching, heavy and warm and sweat damp. “We’ll be placed in the same quadrant.”

“So they do use quadrants.” Keith means to keep that to himself, but he must say it loud enough because the Champion lets out a snorting huff of laughter.

When he glances over, he’s not surprised to see that fond half-smile on the Champion’s face. It’s become increasingly common. Keith expected at first for the Champion to try to hide the sign of affection. Almost defiantly, he never has, like it costs him nothing to show kindness to an angry omegan Tribute. It should cost him something.

“I wondered if you’d figure it out,” the Champion says. Tipping his head back, he looks up at the ceiling. Genuine pleasure fills his voice as he says, “Should’ve known you would.”

People don’t grant Keith that benefit of the doubt. Not until he earns with with sweat and blood. Even the Blades, the closest he’s got to a family, made him earn the right to be assumed competent. That the Champion gives this over so easily, like of course Keith would figure out what few others seem to have realized, is jarring. Another puzzle piece that Keith doesn’t know how to make fit.

“What do you want?” No one can see how he’s got his nails dug into his biceps, the bite of pain soothing against what he’s afraid is coming next.

The Champion hums, then says, “You’re smart and quick.” The way he says this sounds like listing facts. Of course Keith’s felt the Champion’s eyes watching him, since that first day, curious and assessing. But that doesn’t prepare him for: “I have a feeling once we’re on Daibazaal you’ll be more than that.”

“I won’t,” Keith says.

Training has begun to wind down for the day. Only the Galran Tributes remain in their rings, testing one another with blades and claws. They’ve begun to exclude the alpha who had to be taken to a med tech. Not because he’s in poor shape—he’s healthier, certainly, than the other two who still have their injuries—but because requiring medical attention signaled weakness. The other Tributes avoid the Galrans as much as possible. Just like they avoid the Champion, and now Keith.

Pushing to his feet, Keith starts to follow the ebbing tide of Tributes. Dinner will be soon. He’d like a last sonic shower before he goes to die in filth. Before he can take a step off the mat, that same familiar hand closes around his wrist. Keith could yank his wrist free.

“Keith.” Since they began whatever this was, the Champion has not asked for his name or used it. Only fair because Keith has followed the same rules. He wishes they had stuck to those rules. The careful, tender rasp of the Champion’s voice as it shapes his name breaks down defenses he didn’t know he had. “Keith, wait.”

Against every odd and instinct, Keith remains perfectly still and waits. The Champion breathes in deep, thumb rubbing against the inside of Keith’s wrist almost like an afterthought. “I want to ally with you,” the Champion says.

“No,” Keith snaps. He doesn’t look back to see the effect of his words. If he does, he might be lost. Because in the heartbeat between the Champion’s offer and his own response, hope had bloomed fierce and hungry in his chest, a wild thing in his ribcage. Keith wants to stay in this closed and common orbit with the Champion. It feels like something that is his, is  _ theirs _ , when nothing else will ever be his again. But if he allies with the Champion then someday he will have to kill the Champion.

Fingers tighten briefly around his wrist. If he were human, fully human, it’d be enough to leave bruises. “I’m not giving up on you, Keith,” the Champion says.

“I don’t care if you do,” Keith says. Hurting people is how he keeps them safe. Maybe that’s why this mission was always meant to be his. Had felt like destiny when he looked at the Prince on the holoscreen. “I don’t need you.”

Silence has never been this damning. But finally, there’s a sigh. The thumb pressed to Keith’s inner wrist rubs over an old scar just over the vein with aching gentleness. “If you change your mind,” the Champion says, “Use the white flare they give us. Stay alive. I’ll find you.”

When the Champion lets him go, Keith does not look back.

* * *

Another five quintents pass before they reach Daibazaal from Central Command.

During the journey they are kept locked in individual rooms. Twenty paces by twenty paces for Keith, which is large enough for him, but small for many of the Tributes. Unsurprisingly it’s built like a cell block. The cot tucked against the wall is hard. Food is pushed through a slot in the door. Only the blankets are the same—that kitten soft material that Keith really is going to steal from the ship this time.

The Blades teach psychological survival in captivity. No operative is cleared for the field without proving they can survive that kind of stress. Keith finds himself drawing on the training, clinging it close like the blanket, because the room smells like stale fear.

It’s sick to consider how long this ship has been used to transport beings to their certain death if the uncompromising metal has taken in a permanent scent.

But when he trained on surviving captivity, they told him to disengage, to let his mind move away from his body and his circumstances.  _ Bend _ , they said,  _ always bend so you do not break _ . Keith didn’t have places to go when he disengaged. Not like Regris, who said he thought of the ocean, or Thace, who talked about a slender girl he’d loved on his homeworld. Keith just went to someplace dark and quiet.

On the third quintent of travel, he hears someone screaming like a wounded animal in death throes. He clamps his hands over his ears. Wills himself not to focus on the scent of fear that has clogged his nose for days. Disengages. And finds himself sitting on a mat in the training room with his head resting on the Champion’s shoulder.

* * *

They’re dropped in the northern most quadrant of Daibazaal. Weather patterns are cold and unpredictable. Sunlight lasts for only a few hours each day. Wildlife is common, mostly predatory, while plant life is scarce. It’s not unlike the arctic deserts of Earth. If they want to survive, they’ll need to head south, and quickly.

Supplies are limited. Each Tribute has the clothes on their back—pants and jackets made of a tough, loose fitting material, shirts and underwear made of something softer but no less durable, heavy boots. A weapon of choice and a set of explosive colored flares. Keith managed to keep the knife he stole from Lotor, and the blanket that he smuggled under his pants, and it gives him a smug kind of warmth to have those minor extras.

Not so minor, as the sun begins to set again and the temperature drops rapidly. Without shelter, it’d be easy to freeze, and he won’t be surprised if the morning brings the revelation that at least a half dozen went that way in the night.

Keith straps the sword he chose to his waist, tucks the dagger into the belt, and then grabs the white flare. He toys with it for a second before tucking it into his belt next to the dagger. Easy access. Just in case. When he sets off toward the south at a steady, ground eating pace, the recorder drone they assigned him follows after with a few cursory beeps. Keith ignores it. He’ll have to get used to doing that.

* * *

Fifteen Tributes die the first night. Fourteen due to exposure. One due to another Tribute.

Keith watches the sky with troubled eyes as their faces are projected against the slow burn dawn. There should be a hundred and sixteen Tributes in this quadrant. A hundred and one, now. All of the quadrants should contain the same rough number of Tributes. Southern quadrants will have different challenges. Less likely to die outright from exposure. If they keep up a similar rate in this quadrant, then—

There’s awful irony to calculating the dead the way ancient humans used to count sheep in order to sleep.

* * *

Daylight is precious this far north. Without a timekeeper, Keith has only his own sense of time passing, but he puts the space between dawn and dusk at just under six vargas. It burns off the worst of the air chill but does nothing to warm the earth.

Even with the extra protection offered by the blanket, Keith figures out quick that it’s safest to rest during the day. He can usually find a bolthole in the watery light of dawn, watch the sky to count the dead, and then sleep into the light sleep that’s all he can afford. There’s some risk. Other Tributes move during the day, reliant on the light to guide them, and that ups the chance of discovery. But discovery is less of a fear than freezing.

The choice to rest during the day handicaps him in other ways, he knows. Mostly human extends to his vision too. He inherited enough, just barely, from his mother to allow him to travel and hunt during the long nights. But his senses are hardly anything compared to a full Galra, or to some of the other species he’s sharing a quadrant with, and that could fuck him over.

Keith’s careful not to let it fuck him over.

Survival is the only thing that matters right now. Calculating and balancing the risks. Traveling light and staying healthy. Making snares to catch small animals for food. Occupying himself with the simple tasks of eating and walking and sleeping. Avoiding contact with other Tributes.

If the Blades are watching—he’s fairly certain they must be—he hopes they’re proud. He skins a creature that reminds him of a prairie dog, and he thinks of Antok’s steady hands guiding him so he won’t nick the offal. He sets his pace into a ground eating lope, and he thinks of Illun’s bright laughter as she raced ahead of him during training. He measures his hand against the stars to orient himself, and he thinks of Kolivan’s steady voice drilling him in galactic systems. He wants them to know he’s doing their training justice, that he misses them, that he’s going to complete the mission.

And sometimes, as he curls around the solid weight of the white flare, he wants to ask them if it’s okay to still be afraid.

* * *

Keith finds the Tc’wuru on the nineteenth quintent of the Games.

Crouching on the edge of a small rise, he bites the inside of his cheek while he debates whether or not to get closer. No species native to Daibazaal comes in that brilliant green shade. Even if something did, there’s no mistaking the frilled wings, orange tipped and twitching in the cold. Tc’wuru are capable of flight, which would be an advantage if the landscape wasn’t so flat and barren. Daibazaal does not favor things that fly.

In the end it’s the wings that coax him closer. Whoever found the Tc’wuru had almost hacked off one of the wings. The pathetic twitching of the other wings, counterpoint with the way the delicate membrane of the damaged one lays limp on the ground, has him swallowing back bile. Grounding a flighted being is a special kind of cruelty.

Downwind of the Tc’wuru, he scents out the damage even before he sees it. Rot has already settled into the wounds. Maybe they could have been tended, even salvaged, earlier on. Too late now.

Only the occasional rasping cry of the Tc’wuru lets him know it still lives. Licking his lips, he tries a series of high-low whistles. A greeting call. The sound only approximates Tc’wuran speech, lacking the tongue dexterity for true fluency. It translates okay. The Tc’wuru’s fluttering wings still, and there’s a short, gentle whistle back.

_ Empire? _ he calls. It’s too uncertain. Pulling from too far back in his memories. The Blades teach the basics of all of the Empire’s known languages. Greetings, farewells, code words for the resistance. Ironically, the most important question—the one they must know to work the field—is this.  _ Empire song?  _ Because there is irony, bitter irony, in the only language the resistance shares being that of the oppressor.

_ Empire song _ , it trills. Gentler now, like it’s trying to correct his pronunciation.  _ Your name?  _ There’s a sound she uses then, a kind of coo, that he thinks translates to nestling.

“Keith,” he says. Knows even as he says it that the Tc’wuru will not be able to produce the harsh cadences necessary to say his name. “Your name?”

The Tc’wuru sings.  _ Q’rua. _

Carefully, he skirts along Q’rua’s side. Like all Tc’wurans, Q’rua has a face that looks near feline. If cats had no teeth, that is. The Tc’wuru aren’t predators. Aren’t even carnivores. Keith never learned what they eat, but from Q’ura’s malnourished appearance he’s going to guess it’s not available on Daibazaal. Even if Keith had found Q’ura earlier, there’s nothing he could’ve done, not without the food to fuel healing.

Near Q’ura’s injured wing are several gouges. Places where the blade went wide of its mark. They ooze thin blue liquid that must be the Tc’wuran equivalent of blood. Compared to the mangled joint of Q’ura’s wing, these wounds are negligible.

“What do you need, Q’ura?” Keith asks. Reluctance weighs him down. If asked, he can provide a mercy killing. Volunteering for this meant a good chance of killing innocents to accomplish the mission. But he doesn’t want to kill the Tc’wuru.

_ Song _ , Q’ura trills. One of the undamaged wings flares up, like a display, and Keith falls back a step in awe. Daylight filters through the thin membrane and casts an emerald shadow.  _ Song, Ei’th _ - _ nestling _ .

For a tic, he thinks Q’ura expects him to sing. Then the air fills with what he knows is language but cannot understand. It’s a song, layered and nuanced and textured, building on itself. The recorder drone comes to hover near his ear, lights glowing softly as it takes in the sight, and he wonders who Q’ura’s singing for. Not him, that’s for certain, even as its’ voice hums deep in his bones and rearranges something in his ribcage.

The song dies with Q’ura.

* * *

Q’ura’s attacker travels south. Keith tells himself that’s why he tracks them, but he thinks of emerald light and a song in his bones, and turns his stride into a ground eating lope. Three quintents pass before he catches up to the attacker.

The Galran alpha is the same one who’d found himself on the outside of the alliance of Galra. No weapons aside from the curved sword at his waist. No provisions or supplies. Frostbite has taken part of one ear and looks like it might be setting into his nose. Death follows like a shadow in his footsteps as he tries to make a fire. No flares left, likely wasted to keep him going this long.

Keith can’t figure what the purpose of grounding Q’ura had been. Part of him wants to ask. To get the answer as though it will absolve something. It won’t. A bigger part of him, one with teeth, doesn’t want to give the alpha a chance to ruin the echoes of Q’ura’s song.

The alpha dies with a blade buried in the back of his skull. No chance to defend, or fight, or make for an honorable death. Keith wrenches the dagger out of the alpha’s skull and wipes the brain matter on one pant leg. The sword he takes. The body he leaves to rot.

* * *

Fighting and killing turn out to be two very different things. Keith is good at both.

Mostly he stops feeling bile rise when he comes across the grisly remains of another Tribute. The early deaths had all been from the elements, but now it’s rare to find a body that’s not surrounded by blood. Pragmatism makes him take whatever supplies they have that haven’t been damaged or scavenged. It nets him two flares, a set of throwing knives, and an extra jacket. Sometimes he finds personal things smuggled into the Games. Those he leaves.

Four quintents ago the Galra pack split off from each other into smaller groups. There are no more easy Tributes to prey on; and the hunting animals are lean and tough and quick. While the smaller packs try to hunt food, Keith hunts them.

They learn to be wary, after a while, when he’s picked off all the scouts they used to send ahead of the hunt and all the lookouts they used to leave behind the hunt. Doesn’t matter. He’s still smarter. Faster.  _ Angrier _ . The odd deadness in his limbs after a kill starts to disappear. In another life, he doesn’t like how the killing gets easier each time he cleans off his blade. In this life, he has to lean into it because that’s what this mission is.

At night he still calculates the dead. By the end of the first month on Daibazaal the living have dropped to the low double digits. Whatever tech is used to keep them in this quadrant will drop soon. They’ll have to recalculate. 

* * *

_ Pay attention _ , Thace commands,  _ or you’ll end up stabbed in the back. _ Keith is fifteen, nursing a dislocated shoulder that had been the punishment for underestimating the odds of the fight.  _ You’re strong, but you need to be smart _ . All of his limbs are small. Wiry. Thace’s hand circles his entire upper arm easily. Another hand cups his shoulder, holding it still. Keith forces himself to breathe through the pain, nostrils flaring, but he still whines when the joint pops back into place. Thace ruffles his hair in a rare show of affection.  _ Learn from your mistakes, Keith. _

Keith is twenty, blood streaking into his eye, and he sends the last of his throwing knives into the eye socket of an approaching Galra. He didn’t learn from his mistakes. Let himself get caught between the last two alpha packs. Eleven against one are terrible odds.

The Galra hits the ground. Already dead, but the impact drives the knife deeper into her skull. Leaving the weapon behind is a waste. One he can’t afford. The ambush has methodically stripped him of all but one of his flares. But the whooping calls of the other alphas sets him to running again because it’s better to be unarmed than to be dead.

Odds now are better. Six against one. In a fair fight, he could take them, he knows it. Too bad the Games aren’t built on fairness.

Flatland means there’s nowhere to hide. Water isn’t unknown this far north—they all would’ve died a lot sooner—but there aren’t the kinds of rivers he could use to hide his scent. The last bolthole he found was closing in on twelve kilometers away. Dawn isn’t for another six vargas. By then he’ll either be the last one standing or he’ll be dead.

Dead seems more likely, if he’s being entirely honest with himself.

Lungs burning, he arcs himself around a hillock. Turf gives under his feet, ripping up, an obvious sign to anyone tracking him. Getting away takes priority but. He regrets this. Regrets that he’s forced to choose between speed and stealth. Regrets that he’s about to make his family watch him die like this.

Yellow eyes light up his periphery. They’re keeping pace with him now. Any second they’ll draw in, try to herd him toward whatever end they’ve got planned for the little human omega. Keith snarls and reaches instinctively for a weapon.

Fingers wrap around the flare instead. The white flare, saved against reason on some instinctual hope that he hadn’t been able to justify. Quickly, he breaks the spark chamber on the flare and watches it spark to blinding life. White light nearly blinds him and he squints against it. Only pleasure here is that the Galra are even less prepared for the sudden brilliance. They scream, veering away from him briefly.

Keith keeps running. He feels more than sees the moment that his hunters recover. Against every piece of training he’s been given, he clenches his eyes shut, like it will somehow block out the pain he knows is coming.

The alpha hits him low. One tic, he’s all forward momentum. The next, he slams into the ground with enough force to make his ears ring. Every inch of him aches. Too abused by a month of hard living, never enough food, running for near a varga from hunters. Still he thrashes, snapping his teeth and slamming the flare’s burning end into the Galra’s side until the other male  _ screams _ .

It’s too late. Even as he scrambles out from under the first one, the others ring him, careful to stay out of his reach.

The alpha who tackled him stands. “Looks like we finally caught the omega,” he says. Idly, he rubs at the ruined flesh where Keith burned into him. There’s a faint smell. Burnt fur and charred meat. Yellow eyes glow brighter. Fangs bare in a mockery of a smile, but there’s real pleasure in the alpha’s voice as he says,  “And it’s more Galra than it looks.”

Keith’s hold on the flare turns white knuckle even as he stiffens his jaw. Just beyond the halo of light, yellow eyes watch him with obvious interest and recorder drones flare a rainbow of colors as they take in the unfolding horror. All of them waiting for him to break. Then they’ll descend on him, like wolves on a downed cougar, and the entire universe will watch.  _ Stay alive _ , he thinks. Almost laughs when he hears the thought echoed in the Champion’s voice.  _ Stay alive. _

“Put that down, omega,” another one of the alphas says. Her voice is deep and sweet and cruel. In the darkness, she’s just an impression of a lithe shadow. “Not all of us are as rough as Ryzak.” A pause. “Unless you need us to be.”

“Come a little closer and I’ll show you rough,” Keith snarls. It doesn’t matter if his instincts were wrong and no one’s going to save him. Keith can save himself.

Wind chills the sweat at the back of his neck. Repressing a shiver, he shifts his grip on the flare to make it into more of a weapon. Each flare will burn for hours. It won’t kill, not unless he manages to get it into an eye or an ear, but he just wants to damage. All of them are armed. If he can get one of them down, he can steal their weapon, and with a blade in his hands again he’ll be lethal.

One of the other alphas steps closer. Built broader than most of this set, male, with massive curving fangs that dig into his lower lip. Dropping into a crouch, he says, “We can smell your fear, omega.” He lifts his head and scents the wind, as if to prove it.

Just over the fanged alpha’s shoulder, in the darkness, there’s a brief gleam of purple light. A recorder drone, he thinks. Nothing on Daibazaal has purple bioluminescence. Only recorder drones don’t fly that low. They don’t stay away from where the action is. They don’t move in such an erratic pattern.

“Downwind,” Keith says.

“What?” The fanged alpha blinks, briefly startled. He looks up at the burned alpha like he wants confirmation that Keith said something.

“He’s downwind,” Keith says, lips tipping up into a wild grin.

A scream rips through the air. One of the dark shapes of an alpha goes down. Dead before he hit the ground from a hand punched through the chest. Confusion breaks the ranks and it’s beautiful to watch. The Champion moves with brutal efficiency. Easier to track by the violet glow of his arm, lit up nearly to the bicep, as it gouges through the enemy.

They only regroup when four are already down. It’s the fanged and the burned alphas. Some kind of irony there. They crowd close together, snarling into the dark, unsure of where the Champion will strike from next.

Keith edges his way toward the nearest still body—he thinks it’s the female alpha—to grab an actual weapon. He doesn’t know if the alphas will be smart enough to think of grabbing him. If they do, they’ll get a knife in the gut. The female alpha has a pair of long daggers on her. Keith steals them gratefully. Hooks one onto his belt and grips the other in his free hand. With the light from the flare, he can see the viscera left behind from getting a hand punched through her abdomen. He looks away with a grimace and jams the flare upright in the turf beside him.

Maybe the aftermath is unpleasant, but he can’t help watching hungrily as one shadow separates from the rest and that purple light explodes into being again. The display back in Central Command has  _ nothing _ on the Champion in his element. Keith doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything this beautiful.

The fanged alpha catches the brunt of the attack. It hollows him out from neck to abdomen. Fatal, but not immediately. Lashing out, the fanged alpha manages to slam into the Champion, taking them both to the ground.

Death throes give the fanged alpha strength, but he can’t hold up against the Champion. Between one heartbeat and the next, the Champion manages to wrestle his way atop the fanged alpha. The growl that leaves him is vicious. The glowing fist he brings down on the fanged alpha’s face is something else. Something that calls to every instinct Keith ever thought about having.

Years of training have taught Keith not to ignore the quiet rasp of a blade leaving it’s sheath. He glances toward the burned alpha, who’s drawn his own sword and taken three steps toward the Champion. Whose back is open.

Vulnerable.

Ignoring the protest of aching muscles, Keith launches himself at the burned alpha with every bit of strength he’s got left. With the distance between them he needs a miracle. He gets one. One arm hooks over the alpha’s shoulder. Gives him precious anchorage even as the rest of his body starts to slip.

The alpha lets out a surprised grunt. Reaches for him. Too late.

Keith rips the stolen dagger through the alpha’s throat. Arterial spray coats his hand, his arm, and—as he slips off the collapsing alpha—his face. He hits the ground for the second time tonight with only a little more grace than the first time.

Panting heavily, he reaches up to wipe at the blood with his jacket sleeve. When he finishes he finds the Champion watching him. Despite being spattered with blood, the Champion’s expression is soft, eyes dark and gentle as they sweep over Keith with a lover’s possessiveness. It should feel wrong. They just killed nearly a dozen people between them. But all that matters is this: “You came.”

The Champion smiles. “You called.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi do you want to yell at me for the fact that we're 10k in and keith still doesn't know shiro's name??? fear not! i'm on [tumblr](https://akaiikowrites.tumblr.com/).


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